Every evening, I would excuse myself from playing in the

In the words of David Muir, “Every evening, I would excuse myself from playing in the backyard and go inside to watch the evening news… I wanted to get out there and see the world, and as a kid, I knew that Peter Jennings had a thirst and hunger to travel the world, too,” we hear not merely the recollection of a boyhood ritual, but the stirring of destiny. These words unveil the fire that burns in the hearts of those who, even as children, are called by a vision larger than themselves. While others played and chased the fleeting joys of the moment, Muir turned inward and outward at once—away from the garden of games and toward the glowing window that revealed the world. This is the essence of yearning: a sacred hunger that draws the soul beyond the boundaries of the familiar.

The ancients, too, knew of such callings. They taught that the greatest heroes were marked not by chance but by an early longing for horizons unseen. Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon, is said to have wept as a youth when he heard that there were worlds beyond Greece, for he longed to conquer and know them. In Muir’s words, we glimpse the same spirit: a child gazing at the television as Alexander gazed at the map, each stirred by the unseen promise of discovery. Both chose to turn from the games of children to the labors of vision.

Consider the figure of Peter Jennings, whose voice reached across borders and oceans, carrying to countless households the news of triumphs, tragedies, and the ever-turning wheel of history. To a boy like Muir, Jennings was not merely a man on a screen but a herald of far-off places, a bridge to worlds otherwise unreachable. Jennings’ thirst and hunger mirrored the restless quest of the ancients who left home not for pleasure but to understand, to illuminate, to bear witness. In watching him, Muir saw not only the news but the shape of his own becoming.

This tale reveals a great truth: destiny often whispers first in childhood. It does not always come with fanfare or with clarity, but it comes in the form of a tug upon the heart, a voice urging us toward a path others may find strange. For Muir, it was the evening news; for another, it may be a book, a song, a vision glimpsed in a quiet hour. When the child turns toward this whisper and listens, the path of greatness begins. To ignore it is to bury a seed that might have grown into a tree of lasting fruit.

History gives us many examples. Consider the young Abraham Lincoln, who by candlelight pored over borrowed books when others slept, feeling within him the stirrings of a call greater than the life of a farm boy. Or think of Malala Yousafzai, who as a girl felt the weight of injustice and chose not the easy silence of youth but the perilous path of truth. Each, like Muir, turned away from fleeting amusements to feed a deeper fire. Each followed the thirst for knowledge and justice, and from that choice, their lives became rivers that nourished many.

The lesson, then, is luminous: heed the thirst. When you feel the stirring of something larger than yourself—whether it comes through a teacher’s words, the turning of a page, the sight of the stars, or the voice of a guide—do not dismiss it. Excuse yourself from the games that others play if you must, and turn your eyes toward that which expands your soul. For what begins as a child’s strange devotion may one day become a legacy that shapes nations, heals wounds, or lights the path for generations to come.

To follow this teaching in your own life, take time each day to ask: what awakens my hunger? What do I seek not because the world demands it, but because my soul demands it? Cultivate that fire. Feed it with study, with discipline, with journeys both inward and outward. Find those who embody it, as Muir found Jennings, and learn from them. Then, when the time comes, step forward as the one who carries the torch for others.

Thus the wisdom of Muir’s remembrance becomes our guide: that greatness is not born in the grand halls, but in the quiet choices of the evening hour; that destiny does not call with trumpets, but with whispers; and that to see the world, we must first dare to hunger for it. Follow the hunger, and you will find not only the world—but yourself.